The One that Resides in Me

The One That Resides In Me

“NO Lucy…well I m not sure, maybe”. “Nadia we can never be on the same track”. That might have been the last utterance between me and Lucy a couple of days ago. But now she is sleeping with me. She said, I said, but for some time nobody took a serious action, not even a mild one. Songs were traced in the train of thought between us – that is because we are a lot alike- I m not going to act out of cliché and say stuff like Om Kalthoum…or even Sinatra – those being the favorite of my father- the figure of pride and jealousy between Lucy and myself. Assem, the man of every girls dream, music notes come on mind now as I try to express how I – us- feel about him. Tee rara rara ra …. I was from Egypt while Lucy was from Spain; now we are from the clay of Assem. Our father, the renounced translator cheated on the both of us and our mothers. Now Lucy and I live alone in a very green place, but sometimes when he comes to haunt us back it turns caramel like the color of his skin. Although when I saw him bathing naked he was white as the peas of a guava, his skin was always soft by olive oil, the same color of his eyes. BUT he was an Ostrich. Now Lucy and I feel like we can never belong. We now have no place and no home but the arms of ourselves since we are cast out of him.
“I love you Lucy”…silence, the same time we talked a couple of days ago. But I feel ambivalent about how she feels about me. We shout, we scream. AHHHHHHHH…” now I got it out of my system” said Lucy, “now I can love you back Nadia”. Why does it have to be this way? We asked and we answered because regardless of our loneliness we are a camouflage. “But of what???” She answered “God damn it Nadia…how many times do I need to tell u… of him of the man who said he loved us”, kiss me Lucy; kiss me like he never kissed us before. And we cuddled, and then came peace.
Music notes, always music notes, and then a performance. She acted to me that other night, she danced and danced and sang and then drank all the wine. The wine in the fountain, I say in the fountain and not from the fountain because she goes into the fountain and drinks and come out crimson, and then I cry and she cries and we dance ballet. Modern of course and not classic because we don’t like classic. Everything classic reminds us of him. The one and only man. How many times did he come to us and held our hands and walked with us and the land becomes velvet on the music of his violin. Oh yes he was a man of great talents and so were we. We were of every color and every texture. Now we have no one to brag on but ourselves. That’s why we fight a lot but then and again we love ourselves I mean each other… but we both cry at night in the darkness of the hollow space that is between us and yet we don’t listen, we crave. and long and yearn and we are tired. We are exhausted.
“You know what Nadia; I think he loved me more. He always gazed at me in this needy way, like he really wants me with him”; “then why did he leave you here with me”; “because you stupid he didn’t want you to suffer”. She looked at me in anguish and as if she concurred herself, something which ultimately annoys me, “because he loved you too, but me more”. I hate her when she says so, which made me say what I always resent myself for mentioning; “Lucy, you know that u came by mistake, accept it, it was always ME”. Quarrels, firm grips, then soft gestures and then finger nails gently touching each other causing a shiver. We then make love. That is not wrong in our land. We are one, try to understand Assem. We can never be totally yours, you left us and the land has rules. We have to love each other. We have to bond. We are not like you, we don’t cheat and we are desperate and tight. Very very tight. But we do we hurt each other; when we are made of the same clay Why when we feel so right together? We don’t know actually, we might never do.
Then what, what happens to us when we grow old, when our bodies yearn for warmth and our souls long for tenderness.
We fell in love with him and then with each other. Time difference is long, I remember times when he used to sleep between us. Me one leg over his belly and Lucy has an arm around his neck. We used to fight over his very being; who would hold the more of him; who would feel his breath. But he left us. He took us on a journey, the last time we had a chance to look in his eyes and smuggle his beauty into our memory. Then we became so one with each other. We maneuvered around each other. Who would sleep under the shed and who would watch out for the beasts? We became so slim, though we were fat before. That is because daddy loved his girls chubby. He loved us full and round. We thought we betrayed him when we changed so much, when we became fairly beautiful and all the more attractive. When I used to cry for such betrayal Lucy used to comfort me saying that at least there is no one around; that the beauty is held between us. And that’s when we start kissing. Full rounded lips full rounded arms and legs all in one entity; all together. But I tell her no and she says yes. Other times I say yes and she says no. We never settle for the same thing.
The first time we had our period the whole place turned red. The ocean turned gloomy. It whispered his words; you are no longer my young girls. Now I want you. We got very scared. We got used to the female scent and voice and touch. But the blood was so strong. We bled we bled and we bled. We needed medication and no one turned to help us. We were threatened but we did not surrender. We decided to tell our own story. We dressed in white. We walked, and then ran then we stopped to breath; then again and again and again. Our clothes got torn. Our hair was cut by the branches of the huge tree where we first landed. We took it as a bad sign. But then we flew. As our path got longer so did our arms and legs. We were wingless, yet we flew. We touched the sky and we then landed on the top of the mountain. We entered from top to bottom. It was all that contradictions could ever bear; cold and hot as a furnace; intimate and distant as a cloud. But we were met with one wonder that almost knocked the hell out of us. There were portrayals of the two of us in every crack of the deep mountain. There we were smiling and dancing and swimming all, all of our memories together. It was… bitter sweet. We were looking at us from afar from images of the past from mellow rhythm of a loving past. Oh how much did we want it to last. Then again we heard the wild ocean whispers his words, “if troy surrendered to me would not you!!! My dearest and most loving creations. I am your Achilles, the one and only” Out of the blues we directed our long arms and legs that stretched to itch at the cravings on the mountain and reached the bottom of it.
There it was miraculously and insanely beautiful; a piece of the greenest heaven ever to be crafted by the hands of the mighty being. I must be stuttering to the magic of the smile. My God!!! Is that really you, here with us? Our legs and arms shrank at the sight of the mighty HIM. We rolled ourselves in each other’s arms and crawled at his feet. We closed our eyes and whispered a prayer with confidence that nothing would harm us.
Dear lord, may we never separate from the loving company of each other. Please keep us close to the eyes of the sun and the shadow of your moon. We dare ask you to fill our hearts with comfort and satisfaction. I love me because she resides there with you. May I sleep in an eternal dream of ever gentleness of her touch and never let go.
We slept like newly born babies and never were to wake to the whispers of the one and only man, our dearest father.

Nawara Magdy Belal
19-6-2009